Dwayne Andreas

Dwayne Andreas

Dwayne Andreas is one of the most prominent political campaign donors in the United Sates, having contributed millions of dollars to Democratic and Republican candidates alike.  He was born on March 4, 1918 in Worthington, Minnesota.  He grew up mostly in Iowa and attended Wheaton College in Illinois.  He dropped out his sophomore year after getting married and joined a small, family-owned food-processing firm in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.  In 1945, the firm was sold to the agriculture commodity firm, Cargill.  Mr. Andreas joined Cargill and eventually became a vice-president.  This experience helped make him a giant in agro-business later in life.  In 1952, he resigned from Cargill and continued in the vegetable oil business, eventually as an executive of the Grain Terminal Association.

In 1971, Mr. Andreas became the Chief Executive of Archer Daniels Midland (A.D.M.), a grain processing and exporting company in Decatur, Illinois.  Over the next two decades, he oversaw a diversification and expansion that took a company known primarily as a soybean mill, a $325 million venture, into a global conglomerate that today, generates annual revenues in excess of $16 billion.  Under his leadership, A.D.M. became the largest and most powerful U.S. processor of farm commodities such as wheat, corn, and soybeans, and branded itself as, “the supermarket to the world.”  A.D.M. was so powerful that by 1996, it had been investigated for price-fixing and was assessed the largest antitrust fine in U.S. history - $100 million. 

Although virtually unknown to most Americans, since the 1970’s, leading politicians of both parties have been well acquainted with Mr. Andreas and his company.  Over the years he has given money to Senator Bob Dole, President William Jefferson Clinton, President George Herbert Walker Bush, President James Earl Carter, Jr., Michael Dukakis, Jack F. Kemp, and Jesse Jackson, among others.  He has also been a major philanthropist supporting public television and other public interest causes.

In the 1990s, Mr. Andreas became a champion of the ethanol gasoline additive.  Ethanol is derived from corn which makes gasoline burn clean, thus improving the environment.  A.D.M. produces sixty percent of all U.S. ethanol, which has helped ease U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

Mr. Andreas stepped down as chairman of A.D.M. in 1999, and retired from the board in 2001.